By staff reporter Yu Dawei 

Local officials have been sacked for a spate of lake pollution that triggered a severe water crisis for nearly 4.5 million people in eastern China.  

Meanwhile, the government has launched what experts say is a long-overdue effort to clean up Taihu Lake, where factory and farm runoff contributed to an algae bloom that closed water intakes for the city of Wuxi in late May and early June. 

The Wuxi government plans to close small, lakeside chemical plants, sewage drains and industrial projects that generate nitrogen and phosphorus wastes. In addition, officials plan to improve the region’s garbage and wastewater collection systems. 

So far, according to local media, five township officials in the Yixing area of Wuxi have been held partly responsible for the pollution crisis. The five were punished or dismissed for breach of duty, according to Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post. 

Officials started an anti-pollution campaign several decades ago on the lake, the center of a prolific farming area in the Yangtze River Delta known as “a land of fish and rice.” But the campaign’s failure was obvious during the water crisis. 

“Before, we were too optimistic” about the cleanup effort, said Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Taihu Lake Region Management Bureau. “We did not expect the water pollution to be so complex and long-lasting.” 

Years of industrial and agriculture development as well as rapid urbanization contributed to the latest bloom of blue-green algae, in a pollution process called eutrophication, which tainted the lake. 

According to the management bureau, about 5 billion tons of sewage generated by factories and cities are dumped into the lake every year – even though the lake’s annual sewage capacity is only 4.4 billion tons. The waste led to a gradual increase in phosphorus and nitrogen, which promote algae and, according to the bureau, reached ideal levels for algae growth in February. 

The lake region has a high residential density rate -- six times the national average. And as the home of 37 cities and 60,000 factories, it’s been viewed as an economic miracle that now contributes 10 percent of China’s gross domestic product. 

However, pollution in the legendary lake has been a high price to pay for the region’s prosperity.  

“While the Yangtze River Delta is gradually replacing the Zhu River Delta (in southern China) as the new ‘factory of the world,’ pollution generated along with the development of the local economy and urbanization have greatly offset our environmental protection efforts,” Ma Jun, director of the non-governmental group China Public & Environment Research Center, told Caijing.  

Ma cited anecdotal evidence supporting claims that more than 300 factories and manufacturing plants are pouring sewage and wastes into the lake. These include chemical, pharmaceutical, printing and metal plating factories. 

Moreover, to an even greater degree than industries, the lake is being polluted by a mix of fertilizers, farm waste and urban runoff. 

Low water levels and record high temperatures since April also contributed to the algae burst and, due to a subsequent shortage of oxygen, the deaths of fish and other lake creatures. 

The crisis began May 28 in Wuxi, whose only source of tap water is the lake. The city’s water pipes filled with smelly, polluted water too foul for washing let alone drinking. 

During the weeklong crisis, national TV broadcaster CCTV reported that several chemical plants in Yixing were continuing to pump sewage into the lake. 

Amid the crisis, city officials carved out a new strategy and vowed to fight the pollution with a new campaign called “6699” – which stands for six contingency plans, six working mechanisms, nine pollution-source clearing projects, and nine pollution-treatment measures. 

However, some experts also cited a need to improve cooperation among government agencies on environmental protection and water conservation issues. They said provincial officials in the lake region have been putting economic interests ahead of environmental protection. 

Wuxi has consistently worked to fight lake pollution, “but it’s utterly inadequate without the same efforts from neighboring Zhejiang Province and Shanghai,” said a retired official from the Wuxi government.